The Day I left You

I Can't Do This

Two days Chris stays with us before he leaves again and I could tell that Hyunjin felt weird about his visit the whole time. Not him being there, but why he came here in the first place. I get going to your friends house after a break up, but Felix lived in Australia too now and it was much easier to go to his house than flying across sea to see us. After Chris left, Hyunjin took about a day, but he finally asked me what was going on.

We were cleaning up from the first dinner we had made and eaten together in months and I was steady into the dishes when his question caught me off guard.

"So uhh...What was Chan's real reason for coming to Korea after his split with Natalia?"

"Hm? What do you mean?" I was a little confused honestly, but I wasn't surprised he was suspicious. Chris basically stayed attached to me as close as he could his whole stay here...

He dropped the bottle of cleaner he had in his hands on the ground and it made a super loud noise.

"Do you think I don't know how he feels about you?" Suddenly...he started to sound fed up, fast. "I've always known, okay? Ever since you two met, I could see it in his eyes. He liked you and he always has." Hyunjin tore off his gloves in frustration and threw them on the ground with the bottle.

"Hey, I don't think that's quite fair to yell at me. I've never entertained any of that, in fact, I've explicitly told him to move on several times."

"That may be...but you never truly set a boundary with him like you did the other six members...Did you? You let him hug you like only I'm supposed to, he gets to be the first to see your face every morning because you're constantly video chatting when I'm not home. You let him lean all over you like a small puppy dog and you act like it's not supposed to bother me because he's my friend??" He was raising his voice now, but it wasn't in anger. It was sadness. The tears drew from his eyes and were basically breaking surface tension to fall.

"Hyunjin...Why did you wait so long to let me know all that made you uncomfortable?" I ask softly knowing if I got loud too...It might keep escalating.

"Oh, I don't know. I just assumed you would realize maybe it wouldn't feel so good if I did that with my female friends and you'd stop, but you never did. You wanna know the reason we've been 'drifting apart' the last few years? Because of him. Because of his feelings for you that neither of you fully denied. I've noticed every single time he smiles a certain way at you, every time he does something extra for you I know he wouldn't do for anyone else...It hurts. Yes, I've been being distant on purpose, but for good reason...I don't know how much longer I can continue to feel like number two when I've been told I won first place..." He sighs and takes off his apron, setting it on the counter. "I'm leaving for a while. I can't be here right now." He walks off and slips his shoes on, leaving with just his keys, phone and wallet.

I stand there with my head in my hands on the kitchen counter, feeling like I was about to just give up and live in my bed forever. I couldn't take this. I needed all of us to talk or this was never going to get resolved...

I knew Hyunjin was speaking the truth...He was right. I think I had a different boundary for Chris than I did every one else and I didn't even realize it...Maybe it really was because I had hidden feelings for him...I didn't like that thought but I couldn't explain it any other way. The rest were like brothers to me and Chris should be the same, but...he was just different to me and I didn't understand how. I blamed it on the natural development of our relationship, but things I did and let happen made this all fall into a course of action and now...I felt like the damage was irreversible.

One thing was for sure though...I needed to find out the sole reason they split up and I needed to get Hyunjin to talk to Chris. The feat seemed difficult, but I had to take care of this structure from the inside or it would all fall apart before my eyes.